Helen Clark - Heat Wave Humour in the Peak District:

Blog Posted on 18 Apr 2011

Ok – you agree with me don’t you? We’ve just had a heat wave haven’t we? I’m not going mad or anything? How lucky are we in thePeak District? It’s been over 20 degrees and its April – ITS APRIL!!!!!!! How fantastic is that, people? I know the temperature dipped a bit in the middle of the week but it’s still fabulous weather. Where are the April Showers? Nowhere – diddly squat – no rain in the Peak District what-so-evva. We had no rain in any of the ‘Tons’( Hartington, Middleton or Castleton) and we had Highs, in all the “Lows” ( Grindlow , Foolow and Great Hucklow ) I do hope I haven’t jinxed myself by saying that now and the Heavens will open and I shall have a big rain cloud following me around all day.Well you’d think it would be brilliant, fantastic, fabulous, fandabidosy. But no. Everywhere I go people are moaning. It’s not any of those nice F words at all. Apparently it’s a bad thing. It’s bad - really, really bad. A baaaaad F word. The fact that I’m stuck in - side looking out- side , wistfully, working , and all these lovely holiday makers are milling about (MILL- ing gettit?) all having a lovely time – well I don’t moan about that do I? Ok maybe this constitutes a lickle moan but I’ll move swiftly on. People who come into my Gallery, from the gorgeous sunshine- out- side coming in-side are on their holidays. I repeat- they are on- their - holidays. On holiday – in April - and it’s a heatwave. This is Britain. This is the Peak District. Good – no? No.It’s a bad thing. I have a couple of customers who come and visit me every week on route to Bakewell and they were the worst of the lot – moaners in a class of their own- and I told them so. I also told them I would blog about them and their moaning ( they dared me to so a big “told you so” is in order). They came into my Gallery puffing and panting. It’s so bad they have to tell me it’s bad. It’s bad and they are NOT enjoying the sunshine at all. They puff and pant a bit more, flapping their hands in front of their faces in a flappy flippy sort of way. And then....and then.... and THEN ......they start flipping well moaning about how flipping well flipping hot it is!!!!? IT’S FLIPPING APRIL PEOPLE.Now THAT’S bad. I was sooooo sick of hearing them moaning on (they were laughing with me by the way) that while they nipped to get a drink , I put a massive photograph of Villager Jim’s in the window featuring Foolow, under 2 feet of snow. And I put:

“ Loving the Heatwave at the moment? Well, this was the Peak District in January. Brrrrrrrrrrrr.So stop moaning you’re hot.”When they popped their heads back in to say they were going , they spotted it and laughed for ages. It cheered them up no end and they have promised NOT to moan in future.

Oh yes and I MUST mention I had the Googlies last week. It’s not catching don’t worry. This is NOT a moan but a brag (enough about the moaning already Helen). Shameless plug but apparently I was in the top 10 Google alerts for the Peak District, last week, for my last blog – The top 10 IN. THE. WORLD. Fluke or what??? I was very honoured to be in this top 10 Googlies but I have no idea what this means. It is good, I have been told – VERY good. So the lovely people at Peak District Online are happy with my bogging and so am I! Let’s see if the Googlies get me this week – I’ll let you know if they do. Gotta go take this cardy off now – it’s tooooooooooooooooooo hot don’t you think?